Droughts, heat waves and other severe weather are being exacerbated by climate change, several Senate Democrats contended at a hearing Wednesday.

Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held the hearing to call attention to what they said are the risks of climate change highlighted by severe weather this summer. They also sought to blame Republicans for holding up action to prevent or slow global warming.

“I think we have to recognize that extreme weather conditions have a severe burden and cost on our society,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said. “People living on the coast are seeing the sea level rise and thinking about how we protect our critical assets.”

{mosads}Democrats and the majority witnesses said human activity has accelerated climate change that has exacerbated a drought hurting farmers across the country and raised sea levels.

Conservatives said the extreme weather in recent years provides too small a sample size to definitively say climate change exists. Some of the projections predicted by computer modeling also have not come to fruition, they said.

“Empirical data … show that the temperature is basically the same” for the past 10 years, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said during the hearing.

Republicans have said the Obama administration is unfairly targeting fossil fuel companies with harsh air pollution regulations. They, as well as the power industry, say those rules will stunt economic recovery.